Board of Directors
GORDON M. AAMOTH, MD
A personal friend and physician of James H. Binger, founder of the Robina Foundation, Dr. Aamoth has served as a Director and Officer since the Foundation’s inception in June 2004.
Dr. Aamoth grew up in North Dakota and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colorado College. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of North Dakota and his MD from Northwestern University. His residency was completed at the University of California, San Francisco. Gordon practiced orthopedic surgery and taught at the University of Minnesota for thirty-four years. During that period he served on the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery Board of Directors and the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery, holding the position of President in 2001 and 2002. He also served on the Abbott Northwestern Hospital Board, and was President of its medical staff.
Dr. Aamoth has held volunteer positions with numerous other nonprofit boards prior to joining the Robina Foundation.
KATHLEEN BLATZ
Kathleen Blatz is an attorney in private practice, specializing in arbitration and mediation. Prior to re-entering private practice, Kathleen was Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1998 to 2006 and served as Associate Justice from 1996 to 1998. Prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court, she served as a Fourth Judicial District Court Judge, chambered in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Kathleen began her legal career in private practice at a large Minneapolis law firm before serving as an Assistant County Attorney in Hennepin County. In 2007, she was recognized by Minnesota Law & Politics as one of the “100 Most Influential Attorneys in State History.”
Beginning in 1979, Kathleen Blatz served eight terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives, which included five years as an Assistant Minority Leader. She also has an extensive record of service on national and regional boards, including serving as a Trustee of St. Thomas University, a board member of the Minneapolis Big Brothers Big Sisters, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction.
Presently, Kathleen serves as a Director of the RiverSource Funds and as a Trustee of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.
Kathleen Blatz has received numerous national and regional honors, awards, and honorary degrees. She holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame, and an M.S.W. and J.D. with honors from the University of Minnesota.
THOMAS M. CROSBY, JR., Chairman and Treasurer
Tom Crosby is an attorney in private practice in Minneapolis. He was a partner at Faegre & Benson LLP, an international law firm based in Minneapolis from 1972 through 2008. Tom served as Chair of the Firm’s Management Committee and in other administrative positions within the Firm.
Mr. Crosby has a broad-based transactional practice which has included general corporate counsel, private placements, public securities offerings, and mergers and acquisitions. His current emphasis is on real estate, nonprofit organizations and estate planning.
Tom has also served on and chaired the governing boards of the Greater Twin Cities United Way, The Walker Art Center, The Minnesota Orchestral Association and Abbott-Northwestern Hospital. Tom has been a member of the Medina City Council and is presently mayor.
Presently Mr. Crosby serves on the advisory board of Investment Company of America and a community bank in suburban Minneapolis. He is active as trustee to several private foundations including the Robina Foundation.
He graduated from Yale University in 1960, spent two years on active duty in the U.S. Navy and graduated from the Yale Law School in 1965.
H. PETER KAROFF
H. Peter Karoff is chairman and founder of The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI), a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 that promotes philanthropy. TPI designs, manages, and evaluates philanthropic programs for individuals, families, corporations, and foundations. TPI’s goal is to help donors to invest in their own values, communities and societies for maximum impact.
Mr. Karoff was President of TPI from 1989 to 2002. For 25 years, prior to founding TPI, Peter was in the insurance and real estate businesses. He has been on the board of more than 30 nonprofit organizations, including Blackside Productions, producer of the PBS series, The Eyes on the Prize, Massachusetts Association of Mental Health, Roxbury Development Corporation, New England Foundation for the Arts, and Business Executives for National Security, The Synergos Institute, Mediators Foundation, St. Botolph Foundation, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Massachusetts Business Roundtable, WGBH Educational Foundation. Current board affiliations in addition to TPI include: Management Sciences for Health, Gerald and Henrietta Rauenhorst Foundation, the National Leadership Council of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University where he also has served as a Senior Fellow.
Peter teaches in Global and International Studies Program at the University of California Santa Barbara, and at Fielding University. He frequently speaks and writes on philanthropic and social issues and is the author of The World We Want – new dimensions in philanthropy and social change, (AltaMira Press - 2007) and editor of Just Money – A Critique of Contemporary American Philanthropy, (TPI Editions - 2004.) Peter’s poetry has been published and anthologized. A graduate of Brandeis University, Peter earned an MFA from Columbia University, and received an Honorary Degree Doctor of Humane Letters from Lesley University (2002). He was made a Fellow of the McDowell Colony in 1989 and in 2006 became a Purpose Prize Fellow.
STEVEN A. SCHROEDER, MD, Vice Chair and Secretary
Dr. Schroeder is Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, UCSF, where he also heads the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. The Center, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Legacy Foundation, works with leaders of more than 50 American health professional organizations and health care institutions to increase the cessation rate for smokers. It has expanded the types of clinician groups that support cessation, developed an alternative cessation message (Ask, Advise, Refer), created new ways to market toll-free telephone quit lines, and engaged the mental health treatment community for the first time. Between 1990 and 2002 he was President and CEO, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. During that time the Foundation made grant expenditures of almost $4 billion in pursuit of its mission of improving the health and health care of all Americans. It developed new programs in substance abuse prevention and treatment, care at the end of life, and health insurance expansion for children, among others.
Dr. Schroeder graduated with honors from Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, and trained in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical Service of Boston City Hospital and in epidemiology as an EIS Officer of the CDC. He held faculty appointments at Harvard, George Washington, and UCSF. At both George Washington and UCSF he was the founding medical director of a university-sponsored HMO, and at UCSF he founded its division of general internal medicine.
He has published extensively in the fields of clinical medicine, health care financing and organization, prevention, public health, the work force, and tobacco control. He currently is a member of the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine, and in addition to the Robina Foundation he is a director of the James Irvine Foundation, and the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. He formerly chaired the American Legacy Foundation, was a Council member of the Institute of Medicine, an Overseer of Harvard, and President, the Harvard Medical Alumni Association. He has six honorary doctoral degrees and numerous awards. Schroeder lives in Tiburon, California with his wife Sally, a retired schoolteacher. Their two sons are physicians, one a cardiologist and one a pediatrician. Steve and Sally have three grandchildren.